Morristown bookkeeper charged with stealing $394K

A family of Morristown developers are missing nearly $400,000 from their businesses.

Monday a grand jury indicted Sally Ann Frazier, 40, for the crime. She was the bookkeeper for Mike Bunch Investments and Bunch Builders for three years.

The group owns the Holiday Inn Express in Morristown and the Sherwood Commons Shopping Center.

"It's a pretty successful business here and we just felt something was wrong," said Mike Bunch about the first time he noticed money missing.

He and his partner started investigating in 2009 when they discovered cash was missing. But they couldn't find any concrete evidence as to who was taking it.

"There were others principles involved [besides Frazier]. We had different people working here and you don't want to falsely accuse anybody," Bunch said.

By 2012, they found a paper trail from the Sherwood Shopping Center.

Morristown police got involved. They say documents show Frazier took the rent checks from the Shopping Center's business and deposited them into an account Bunch believed she had closed. Police then say she wrote checks to herself.

"It was very humiliating to be honest with you to see how it all happened; I just felt betrayed," he said. "We're grateful we caught it. We wish we would have caught it earlier."

Bunch said the $394,000 he lost was money he would have used to reinvest in the community. But he says he's trying to put it past him and get back to business as usual.

"Hopefully people can learn from what's happened," he said.

Frazier is in the Hamblen County Jail on $250,000 bond. She faces six counts of theft over $60,000 and one count of theft over $10,000.